The present invention relates to an oil collecting apparatus, and in particular to an oil collecting apparatus which makes it possible to recover polluted nature environment and to keep nature environment clean in such a way that oil leaked over river or ocean is effectively collected on the spot, and only the oil is removed by separating water and oil.
Generally speaking, when a ship (more specifically, an oil tanker which carries crude oil) strands on river or ocean while it sails, the oil held in the ship leaks for thereby polluting river or ocean, which results in severe environment problems.
It is hard to effectively collect the leaned oil, so the leaked oil spreads more and more with the aid of tides, thus killing fishes and shells in the farms, so large accidents may occur, causing economical damages.
According to a related prior art, adsorption cloths are covered on the leaked oil which is locked up by an oil fence, thus collecting the oil-sucked adsorption cloths. This method seems to be a primitive way, so many workers are necessary during the collecting work, and it is almost impossible to collect the leaked oil within a short time period. Lots of leaked oil may spread faster, so such pollutions may threaten the whole biological system of the ocean.
In the above mentioned occasion, the best way is to previously prevent such accidents; however once the marine pollution accident occurs, the marine pollution area fast increases due to tide and wave and sea water circulation. So, it is very important to minimize the marine pollution area by quickly managing the pollution accident in a proper way. In case of such a marine accident, quicker and more efficient oil collection are the best way.
According to Korean Patent Registration No. 10-0239829, as illustrated in FIG. 1, there is provided a marine leaked-oil collecting and treatment apparatus which is configured to quickly collect oil when a marine pollution accident occurs for thereby reducing the required number of workers who set up an effective marine pollution plan and a pollution accident management while saving related costs.
FIG. 1 is a schematic view illustrating a construction of an oil collecting apparatus of the related prior art. The oil collecting apparatus of the related prior art comprises a suction unit which includes a floating suction member which floats on a sea water so as to quickly suck floating oil spread over a wide area of the sea water and sucks the oil from the surfaces of the sea water, and an ejector 2 configured to generate sucking force with the aid of a pressure drop occurring when fluid passes at a high speed by means of a main pump 1 in order for suction force to generate in the floating suction member; a separation unit configured to separate based on a viscosity difference the mixed fluid sucked by means of the suction unit and separated by a multi-stage tank including an open separation tank 7 wherein part of a ship bottom is open for the water separated from the oil to be automatically discharged and the separation unit is installed in the ship; and a transfer control unit which includes a multi-stage tank configured to transfer the fluid of the separation unit, water-oil sensors 5, 5a and 5b installed in each separation unit for adjusting and controlling the operations of the pump, and control panel and controllers 8a, 8b and 8c configured to receive signals from the water-oil sensors and to perform control operations.
The separation unit comprises a stabilization tank 4 configured to stabilize the mixed fluid inputted at a high speed from the suction unit and separated by a multi-stage partition 4a for the sake of separations based on a viscosity difference; an open separation tank 6 configured to separate the mixed fluid inputted from the stabilization tank 4 based on a viscosity difference wherein the bottom of the open separation tank 6 is open in order for the water of the separated lower side to be naturally discharged; and a separation tank 7 configured to finally separate the water and oil in such a way to spray the floating oil onto tops of the stabilization tank 4 and the open separation tank 6 with the aid of the transfer control unit.
The oil collecting apparatus of the related art has problems in that parts are expensive, and a plurality of devices are linked in a complicated form, so the manufacture costs a lot, and a well-trained worker should handle the apparatus, so the related art is not economical, and it takes a lot of time to operate the apparatus.